International investigators receive additional data on MH17 crash from Russia

The international team of investigators will study the new data in detail

THE HAGUE, August 24. /TASS/. International investigators have received additional radar data from Russia on Malaysia Airlines jet crash in eastern Ukraine, the Office of the Dutch Attorney General whose representatives form part of the Joint Investigation Team said on Thursday.

In response to an additional request for legal assistance sent by the Netherlands, "we have received additional radar data from Russia this week and instructions [to the software for data decoding]," the Attorney’s Office said.

It recalled that the data received from Russia in October 2016 had not been provided in the ASTERIX format, which has been developed by the European Organization for the Safety of Civil Aviation and is internationally accepted and used worldwide.

"The additional data that we have received should be provided in the ASTERIX format," the Attorney’s Office stressed. "This information will be decoded and studied in detail in the near future."

The Boeing 777 that performed the flight MH17 had 283 passengers and fifteen crewmembers aboard. None of them survived.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) consisting of experts from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Ukraine claims that the missile that brought down the plane was launched by a Buk air defense system located near the township of Pervomaiskoye to the south of Snezhnoye at the time of the accident. On July 17, 2014, Snezhnoye was controlled by the eastern Ukrainian self-defense forces.

However, analysis done in Russia shows the data from primary radar imaging rules out a version of the tragedy that claims an air defense missile that supposedly brought down the Malaysia Airlines jet was launched from a place to the east of the crash site or from the Snezhnoye populated locality.